


Guide Me Home

by idrilhadhafang



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Badass Rey, Darkpilot Baby, Earn Your Happy Ending, F/M, FinnRey Baby, Gray Jedi Ben Solo, Gray Jedi Order, Gray Jedi Rey (Star Wars), M/M, Mention of Pregnancy At The End, Post-Canon Fix-It, Rebels Callbacks, Sort Of, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Fix-It, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Spoilers, THIS MOVIE IS DEPRESSING ENOUGH YOU FUCKS, World Between Worlds, to quote The Editing Room
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:00:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22234468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idrilhadhafang/pseuds/idrilhadhafang
Summary: Ben Solo’s story doesn’t end on Exegol.
Relationships: Finn/Rey (Star Wars), Poe Dameron/Ben Solo, Poe Dameron/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Poe Dameron/Kylo Ren
Comments: 4
Kudos: 26
Collections: Finnrey Fanfic Connection, The_Multishipper_Post_TROS_Happy_Place_Collection, Trope Bingo: Round Fourteen





	Guide Me Home

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Future Fic 
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing. 
> 
> Author’s Notes: So I may be bullshitting about the World Between Worlds based on the clips I watched of said episode of Rebels. Fair warning. 
> 
> The idea of Ach-To having a World Between Worlds was inspired by some Reylo meta I heard of that I actually liked, about Ach-To and Exegol being linked. (I just like it because of the whole light-dark theme. The world of the Jedi being linked to the world of the Sith) I decided to tweak it to not make it an obvious rip-off. 
> 
> Special thanks to the_garbage_will_do on AO3 for helping me with the climax!

Going to Tatooine was just a short excursion, in the end, Rey can’t help but think. Burying Luke and Leia’s lightsabers, as a final tribute to what they both meant to her. (She mentally includes Han in there as well, a sacrifice of Kylo’s, though also of Snoke and Palpatine’s manipulations) She’s more than ready to start building a new order of Force Sensitives. She knows that it will be complicated, in the end — more than complicated, actually. After all, building a new Code from scratch...how is she supposed to do that? It’s not going to be as easy as simply coming up with it. It doesn’t work that way.  
  
So Rey’s reading through the texts. Going over key details. It’s odd, seeing what she can scrap and what she can keep, but then again, given her upbringing on Jakku, one could say that it’s her specialty. Taking what she likes, leaving the rest. It’s going over the texts that she runs across something that abruptly makes her breathing hitch.  
  
It’s a fool’s hope, of course. Thinking that she can save Ben. When she told Poe about what Ben did for her, his eyes went wide — like his galaxy had come to a screeching halt. In a way, she knows the feeling — she didn’t love Ben (and the revelation that Anakin Skywalker was technically her uncle, making Ben her first cousin, does put a damper on any romantic feelings), but she had felt a weird kinship with him. Perhaps that was why she’d gravitated towards him — because he was lonely, like she was, and they were alike, if different in all the ways that mattered.  
  
But she thinks of Poe. Thinks of how Poe looked. Thinks of Poe finally telling her about Ben Solo, how they had known each other as kids. How Ben had seen the good in Poe even when Poe had gone through his Spice Runner phase, and how Poe saw the good in Ben in turn when Ben was struggling. Rey can believe it. From what she saw of Ben Solo, there was a whole nexus of kindness in him that Snoke and Palpatine tried to smother and couldn’t succeed at.  
  
No wonder Poe loved him so. Rey doesn’t know if she’ll succeed...but she has to try.  
  
***  
  
“You know, this is cruel even for you, Rey.” The way Poe sounds, even as they meet in the command center, is so broken — it’s something that Rey hates hearing.  
  
Rey swallows. “You can’t just lose hope,” she says. “It’s there — right there, in the texts. Beaumont...he confirmed it. Here.” She sits on a chair next to Poe, takes his hand and points to the pertinent passage about the World Between Worlds, reciting it. Of course, the book goes on about the limitations of the World Between Worlds, and according to Beaumont, the Temple on Lothal was destroyed long ago, but there are other openings. Malachor, for example, where Ahsoka Tano faced Darth Vader. Ach-To. Exegol. Just to name three. The galaxy was a whole series of portals in places to the World Between Worlds.  
  
Poe nods. “I...believe you.” He sighs. “I’m just so tired, Rey...” A beat. “Then again, I have to remember what Leia said. Hope is like the sun.”  
  
Rey can’t say that she’s heard that quote before, but she agrees.  
  
“I ought to let him stay dead,” Poe says. “And yet...I couldn’t save him once. I’m not gonna fail him again. And...I hate what he did to me, but I can’t hate him.”  
  
Rey knows the feeling. It’s not a romantic feeling, but she feels it nonetheless. Finn’s the only one among them who has no love for Kylo Ren and never knew Ben Solo, but he agrees to go with them. Because he’s loyal to Poe and Rey both. Rey wonders if she took him for granted now; she can remember Force pushing him away during the lightsaber duel with Kylo on Kef Bir because she was scared for him, but she also wonders if there was a more selfish element to it. She’ll try to make it up to Finn. She knows that. Finn puts Rose temporarily in charge of the Resistance, saying that if anything happens to any of them, she can be trusted to take over.  
  
“I hate leaving you out again,” Finn says. “Really. But of all the people I trust to make sure that the Resistance stays together, I trust you.”  
  
Rose nods.  
  
“So, you and Jannah,” Finn says. “How’s it going?”  
  
“She’s wonderful.” And the way Rose looks, the way she just seems at home...Rey realizes she knows the feeling. It’s how she’s felt around Finn.  
  
***  
  
The hyperspace coordinates are already programmed into the Falcon, so the trio doesn’t have to do the work of reconstructing Artoo’s map. Thank Ri’ia for that. Finn seems to be almost quiet, so while Poe pilots the Falcon (Rey’s joked with him prior to this not to pull any bizarre stunts like he did with the Falcon first time he flew it. “You’re a disaster area when it comes to being a pilot,” she’d said lightly to Poe, which Poe had chuckled at), Rey goes to see him.  
  
“I was wondering,” Finn says, even as they sit down, “I mean, if you, Poe and him are in love, I guess I won’t...”  
  
“Finn,” Rey says, gently, “It’s not like that at all. Even when I kissed him, it felt off. Like kissing a family member. I think I was just happy that he came back. That he redeemed himself. But even if I felt like I did...my grandfather,” and she says the words with some degree of venom, “Created Anakin Skywalker. I’m Anakin’s niece. It’s not a...perfect family connection, but I didn’t just choose the name Skywalker to get away from my past.”  
  
Finn pauses. And then he says, “Rey...it’s okay. Really.” To think that he can still think the galaxy of her after she kissed her first cousin.  
  
“Besides,” she says, “Even if we weren’t related...” _Go on, Rey. Say it._ “I felt a kinship with him. With you, though, I feel safe.” Finn nods. Rey continues. “You say I looked at you like no one ever had. You did the same for me, Finn. No one asked me if I was okay before you did. No one treated me as a sentient being, before you did. Maz said on Takodana that the belonging I sought wasn’t behind me, but ahead. And my place in all this was never on Tatooine. It was with you, with Poe, with Ben...if we find him.”  
  
Finn nods. “I don’t forgive him, for the record, for what he did.”  
  
“You don’t have to. And you’re certainly not a bad person if you don’t.”  
  
Their fingers touch. It’s the beginning of something more. Rey knows that much. She can build her hope on that beginning.  
  
***  
  
Landing on Ach-To is smoother than the previous times that Rey landed there. When she first landed there, she got off to a rough start (to say the least) with Luke Skywalker. The second time, she had nearly lost hope, terrified of the darkness in her. Now, the trio has a purpose. BB-8 stays behind; he initially protested, but after listening to Poe patiently explaining that a droid couldn’t make it up the stairs to Ach-To’s top, BB-8 reluctantly agreed to stay behind and prime the engines. Rey’s still impressed by how gentle Poe is with BB-8. At least he and D-O can hang out. The droids seem to be forming a budding friendship. They walk up the steps, and while Rey’s used to it, Finn and Poe aren’t.  
  
“You know,” Poe pants as he makes his way up the seemingly endless stairs to Ach-To, “I swear whoever made their stairs really was a big fan of walking.”  
  
Rey laughs despite herself. It’s almost easy to forget that they’re not on a mission to save the love of Poe’s life. Almost.  
  
Eventually, they reach the top of Ach-To, and Rey looks around. She thinks of where the portal might be. Even as she extends her senses, she can feel the Mirror Cave on Ach-To, teeming with energy, and she remembers.  
  
"I got lost in the Mirror Cave,” she says, “Before. But the entrance, exit and the mirrors weren’t the only things there.”  
  
***  
  
The entrance to the Mirror Cave is sopping wet as ever. Rey definitely doesn’t miss how cold and wet it is when she emerges from the water and guides the others towards where she can feel the portal’s entrance. She has to tug Finn and Poe away from the mirror, gently — and Poe actually seems to be tense in that moment, not just from seeing who was apparently his deceased mother in the mirror. (The cave seems to be exceptionally cruel)  
  
“It’s messing with your head,” she says. "It couldn’t get to me once, so it’s trying to get to you.”  
  
“Obviously,” Poe says. “So what’s the plan? From what you translated, the Force seems to have some issues with meddling with time. Otherwise...anyone could do it.”  
  
“Palpatine nearly did it,” Rey said. Then, "We just need to find the right portal.” She remembers that horrifying moment when Palpatine pushed Ben into the pit. If they could intervene there...but wouldn’t it throw a wrench into her past self's battle with her grandfather?  
  
Rey hopes that she isn’t going to kriff this up.  
  
***  
  
Making their way into the nexus itself...it’s a whole grid, a whole maelstrom of voices. Ezra apparently heard voices from the future. Rey can hear the chants of the Sith on Exegol, and a woman giving a speech. _“To reclaim the galaxy, to shape it into a paradise...the time is now!”_ Rey shivers.  
  
“What is this?” Finn says.  
  
"Echoes,” Rey says. “No doubt of what might be." There are portals. Multiple points she could change. Her parents dying. Han dying. Luke dying. Kylo becoming Supreme Leader. Finn being injured.  
  
But she knows what she came here for.  
  
She steps towards the portal. The portal that she knows will cause the least amount of upheaval to the timeline. Past Ben dragging himself out of the pit. Healing her past self. The kiss. And then, Rey reaches through the portal, reaches through the Force.  
  
_Come back to us, Ben. Be with us. Be with us..._  
  
***  
  
For a moment, even as Ben lies there on the ground (something resembling ground, at least), Rey fears she failed, and her heart sinks. In desperation, Poe sinks to his knees — it’s the closest that Rey can see to him nearly breaking down. He presses down, checking for a pulse...  
  
“I found it,” Poe says. “There’s a pulse. He’s alive.”  
  
And Rey almost cries in relief. She didn’t fail in their mission. They didn’t fail in their mission. And even as Ben stirs, as Rey takes in that look of wonder in Poe’s eyes...she knows she did something right.  
  
“Poe,” Ben says, softly. “You look like a drowned kath hound. What happened?”  
  
“Guess we created our own future,” Poe says.  
  
“Poe, I hurt you. I did so many terrible things, I’m a monster — ”  
  
Poe cuts him off by kissing him, winding his hands into thick, black hair. And Rey knows that in that moment that what they got back was invaluable, unable to be replaced.  
  
Eventually, they break away. Ben looks stunned, and yet, also, like he could get used to this, for the rest of his life. His actual life.  
  
“Come on,” Rey says. “Let’s leave the past behind. Let’s leave it all behind.”  
  
And even making their way into the sunlight of Ach-To, back to the Falcon, Ben blinking as he takes in the sun, Rey knows that they’re all, terribly lucky.  
  
  
_**One Year Later:**_  
  
Even as Rey looks over her students practicing in the sparring room, Finn’s hand in hers (it was a while before they started dating and eventually married), she can’t believe how far the Gray Jedi have come. She didn’t think that they’d manage to do so much — or that Ben would become so integrated. (Indeed, the other Resistance members had only grudgingly agreed that Ben help with building a new Order as a form of penance) But sitting with Finn by her side, Poe sitting by Ben with their little daughter (it’s remarkable what Kaminoan cloning can do now) Leia Dameron-Solo, Rey knows that it’s an ending that they’ve earned all too well.  
  
"You okay?” Finn says.  
  
Rey smiles, faintly. “I can’t believe we did it.” They’ve come so far, and so has the rebuilt Republic that Rose is in charge of. (Chancellor Rose Tico...who would have thought it?) The stormtrooper program’s been shut down. The Sith have been driven away. (Even if sometimes Rey wonders about the woman’s voice in the nexus) And Jakku...things have been attempted to be made better for its residence (so no one has to go through what Rey did). They’ve done so much.  
  
A fluttering kick reminds Rey that there’s more on its way. More specifically, her and Finn’s child. She knows that there’s a lot to do with their baby. (Rey’s thought, if it’s a boy, naming him Trias, after her father. Or Han, for that matter. If it’s a girl, naming her Nerys, after her mother)  
  
“How’s the warrior?” Finn teases.  
  
Rey smirks. “Active.”  
  
“Like their mother,” Finn says.  
  
They both laugh, even as Finn places a hand over Rey’s swelling belly. Ben looks her way, murmurs, “Good luck”, even as Poe playfully elbows him in the ribs.  
  
“There’s so much we have to say,” Rey says. She knows Ben and Poe are at least in the process of starting to tell Leia Dameron-Solo about what happened to Ben. “Too much.”  
  
“Yeah. But it’ll be an epic of a story,” Finn says.  
  
Rey smiles, and they turn back towards their practicing students, towards the generation that holds all their hopes, all their promises for a better future.


End file.
